Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they are considered one of the most influential acts in the original wave of British punk rock, with their music fusing elements of reggae, dub, funk, ska, and rockabilly.

[1] In January 2003, shortly after the death of Joe Strummer, the band, including original drummer Terry Chimes, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Joe Strummer, whose real name was John Graham Mellor, sang and played rhythm guitar in the pub rock band The 101ers, which he had formed in 1974 with Alvaro Pena-Rojas.

[4] Bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Terry Chimes auditioned for London SS but were rejected,[5] and Nicky Headon drummed with the band for a week then quit.

[23] Simonon fought with J.J. Burnel, the bass player of The Stranglers, a slightly older band who were publicly identified with the punk scene but were not part of the "inner circle", which centered on the Sex Pistols.

On 13 August 1976, the Clash, wearing paint-spattered "Jackson Pollock" outfits, played in their Camden studio before a small, invitation-only audience,[28] which included Sounds magazine critic Giovanni Dadamo, whose review described the band as a "runaway train ... so powerful, they're the first new group to come along who can really scare the Sex Pistols shitless".

[33][34] On 21 September 1976, the Clash performed publicly for the first time without Levene at the 100 Club Punk Special, sharing the bill with the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Subway Sect.

[40][41] A confrontation between Black youth and police at the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival was important in the development of the Clash's political stance and inspired Joe Strummer to write "White Riot".

The band had been influenced by the subject matter, slogans and lyrics of reggae, which they often played in rehearsals but recording "Police and Thieves" was an important step that was only taken after a lot of discussion within the group.

[54] Though The Clash quickly rose to number 12 in the UK, CBS refused to give it a US release, believing that its raw, barely produced sound would make it unmarketable there.

I want to give them even more energy than they've got—if that's possible";[49] in an interview over twenty years later, he said his original plan was to stay briefly, gain a name for himself, and then move on to a better gig.

Also on the bill were X-Ray Spex, Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots, and headliners Tom Robinson Band; they played to 100,000 people, who marched through London and attended the RAR Carnival.

[87][3] To accompany the single, the band produced their first official music video, in which Joe Strummer wears an H Block T-shirt in support of the campaign for political status for Irish Republican prisoners.

[98] At the end of 1979, the band members attended a private screening of a new film called Rude Boy, which is part fiction and tells the story of a Clash fan who leaves his job in a Soho sex shop to become a roadie for the group.

The movie, which was named after the rude boy subculture, includes footage of the band on tour, at a London Rock Against Racism concert, and in the studio recording Give 'Em Enough Rope.

[3] In October, the band's US record company released a B-side compilation EP called Black Market Clash, which was later re-released in expanded form as a full-length album.

[115] In September 2009, Jones and Headon reunited to re-record the 1970s Clash B-side "Jail Guitar Doors" with Billy Bragg, who founded an eponymous charity that gives musical instruments and lessons to prison inmates.

[121] On 6 September 2013, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon reunited for an exclusive BBC Radio 6 Music show to promote their legacy and the release of Sound System.

refers to the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a group of left-wing rebels who had recently overthrown Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle; the album includes songs that were inspired by other political issues; "Washington Bullets" addresses covert military operations around the globe and "The Call-Up" is a meditation on US draft policies.

[145] According to The Times, the Clash's debut, alongside Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, is "punk's definitive statement" and London Calling "remains one of the most influential rock albums".

[148][149] Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers, the first major punk band from Northern Ireland, said of their debut album's impact:[T]he big watershed was the Clash album—that was go out, cut your hair, stop mucking about time, y'know.

Although the Damned and the Pistols were great, they were only exciting musically; lyrically, I couldn't really make out a lot of it ... [T]o realise that [The Clash] were actually singing about their own lives in West London was like a bolt out of the blue.

While Sex Pistols' debut gig at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall has been acknowledged as the starting point of that city's punk scene, the Clash's first performance at Eric's, where they were supported by The Specials, had a similar effect in Liverpool.

[161] According to biographer Antonio Ambrosio, the Clash's involvement with Jamaican musical and production styles inspired similar cross-cultural efforts by bands such as Bad Brains, Massive Attack, 311, Sublime and No Doubt.

[130] Bands identified with the garage rock revival of the late 1990s and 2000s such as Sweden's The Hives, Australia's The Vines, Britain's The Libertines, and America's The White Stripes and the Strokes, show the Clash's influence.

[165][166][167] London Town, a film that tells the story of a Clash-obsessed teenager who in 1979 meets Joe Strummer by chance and finds his life changing as a result, was released in 2016.

[citation needed] In 2009, Springsteen & the E Street Band covered Strummer's song "Coma Girl" and in 2014, along with Tom Morello, they opened some of their shows on the High Hopes Tour with "Clampdown".

[173] Many rock en español bands such as Todos Tus Muertos, Café Tacuba, Maldita Vecindad, Los Prisioneros, Tijuana No, and Attaque 77, are indebted to the Clash.

[174][175][176] Argentina's Los Fabulosos Cadillacs covered "Should I Stay or Should I Go", London Calling's "Revolution Rock" and "The Guns of Brixton", and invited Mick Jones to sing on their song "Mal Bicho".

[177][178] In March 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, surviving members of the Clash gave permission to Ukrainian punk band Beton to rewrite the lyrics of London Calling.